Deaf Gamers:

Video Games and the Deaf Community By
Alice Power, 3/27/2008

The video game industry as a form of entertainment has become
a widely used and enjoyed medium. Because of their popularity,
the video game industry is able to translate video games into
other languages so that people from all over the world can enjoy
them. There are even considerations taken so that children of
any age are able to enjoy games that are suitable for their age
range. However, there is little to no consideration given to
deaf gamers. I was interested in this topic because I have grown
up enjoying video games and took for granted the fact that I am
able to understand and play them without any problems. For the
deaf community this can be a little more difficult.

While I was looking up deaf video gamers on the internet I
realized that there is a common complaint among deaf gamers. All
video games are not required to have captions to help the deaf
gamer understand what is going on. This is very frustrating to
many because it limits the variety of games they are able to
play. Traditional video game reviews do not give the deaf
consumer the proper information about the availability of
subtitles so I found one website that did. Deafgamers.com
explains “Text/visual feedback is a key issue for a deaf person
and many has the occasion been when a deaf games player
purchased a game only to find no visual feedback or very little
of it (this can ruin the game for them).” (Deaf Gamers). So this
site not only reviews the quality of the game but the games
“deaf friendliness” if you will.

KQED did a program called “Video Games—Access for All” in which
they talk about the challenges that people face and the
responsibility game developers have in making their games
accessible to everyone including the deaf community. One hearing
impaired person interviewed was frustrated about being able to
play the game Doom 3. While he was able to hear with a Cochlear
Implant, his friend who was deaf was unable to enjoy it because
of the dynamic sounds in the game. He propositioned the company
who makes the game to have him make the captions so that it
could be an option in the game. So far several thousand people
have downloaded the captioned version of the game.

There is no sense in an industry to limit the amount of people
able to use their products. The video game industry should
really look at this problem and go along with the same standards
that television and movies already have addressed. I think this
really opened my eyes to the problem deaf people still have when
it comes to accessibility even in our seemingly advanced
technological world.